We'll be returning to Isaiah chapter 38. Series through the book of Isaiah. This now will be message number 46, entitled Hezekiah's Psalm. And we're going to be looking at the rest of this chapter, which is verses 9 to 22. So I'm going to read verse 9 as we get started. The writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, when he had been sick and was recovered of his sickness. So chapter 38 opened with the event of Hezekiah's sickness and his recovery by the word of God. Now this event happened a couple of years before the events in chapters 36 and 37 that come before it here in Isaiah's prophecy. And that points to a theological, a thematic arrangement Meaning that there's a greater significance here than merely just the extending of Hezekiah's life and reign. So ultimately remember the message of Isaiah is a message to Israel to instruct them concerning the prophesied judgment that is to come. Beginning all the way back with Moses in the end of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. and to how they should understand it, how they should respond to this Word of God. So Hezekiah is deliberately connected with Ahaz, with David, and with Jerusalem in Isaiah's prophecy. And these connections are strategically paralleled in the text of Isaiah to contribute to a unified and coherent message of judgment, of death, of resurrection, and restoration. Now, Hezekiah was spared and his life was extended, as it were, and the same thing would happen to Jerusalem. But both of them would go on to die. So we saw how this unresolved tension actually anticipates resurrection and restoration, hope that's only fulfilled through the Messiah who would also suffer and die and rise again, which is also a part of Isaiah's prophecy coming in later. So this opening of this chapter, Now it sets us up for the rest of this chapter, which is mostly Hezekiah's psalm. So in verses 9 to 20, is what we would call Hezekiah's psalm. And it is a psalm that was written in response to his deliverance. Now verses 21 and 22 are not part of the psalm itself, but they do give a concise conclusion to this particular chapter. Now Hezekiah's psalm is very, very rich. And we're going to treat it as a psalm. And so it's not a part of the psalm collection in the book of psalms, but it is a psalm and we're going to look at it as such. There's actually several of those that occur in scripture that are not in the book of psalms, but occur in the text and other books. One example would be the psalm of Moses in Exodus chapter 15, verses 1 to 18. Another would be the psalm of victory over Amalek in Exodus chapter number 17. verses 1 to 16. Another example would be Hannah's prayer in 1 Samuel 2, verses 1 to 10. The lament of Job in Job 3, verses 1 to 26. And there are still some others. These are just examples of Psalms that occur in the text of books that's not in the collection of the Psalms. Well, that's what we have here with Hezekiah's psalm. And in fact, reading these chapters, like chapters 36 and 37 and coming into 38, a lot of this material can be found almost word for word in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. But Hezekiah's psalm is only found here in the book of Isaiah in chapter 38. It's the only place in Scripture that it appears. Hezekiah's psalm praises Yahweh for deliverance from death, resulting in renewed praise in Zion. So if you have listened to or been a part of any of our psalm studies, then you know that that is a single sentence summary of this psalm, just as we gave, and there's 150 of them online, so you can go and listen to those on Sermon Audio if you'd like to. So this psalm Hezekiah which is again is verses 9 to 20. I would break down into two parts a simple outline verses 9 to 14 which speaks more to Hezekiah's despair and verses 15 to 20 that speaks to Hezekiah's joy and this comes from the deliverance obviously. Now, Hezekiah is the author of this psalm. The superscription here ascribes it to him. And yes, verse 9 functions like a superscription in the psalms, and we looked at so many of those. And the word for writing here that is used, the Hebrew term miktab, is very close to another Hebrew term, miktam. And that word appears in the superscription of Psalm 16, Psalms 56 through 60, and there are some similarities between those psalms and this psalm. It's not the same word, but it is very close. Actually, it's only one letter difference and very closely related. Scholars debate the precise meaning of Maktab. Maktab is a little more a little more clear, meaning writing or some sort of inscription, something that has been written down. So it tells us that this is a composition of Hezekiah, and he made it for a purpose. Now, within the text of Hezekiah's psalm, there is no direct musical direction. As we saw in many of the psalms, there will be rests when the word selah is used, there will be indications of instrumentation or of melody that's given. Oftentimes that occurs in the superscription. So there's no direct explicit musical direction, but there is a mention of the singing of this psalm with the accompaniment of stringed instruments that comes later in verse number 20. Now the occasion of this psalm is given in the superscription in verse number 9 and it is a psalm that is reflective as Hezekiah was healed after his sickness and his life was extended. Now, Hezekiah's psalm is, again, not included in the collection of the psalms known as the Psalms, the Book of Psalms, but it is a psalm that is given us in line with its historical setting. Now, one of the things that we did when we were looking at going psalm by psalm through the entire collection of the psalms is for every psalm where we could possibly know what that historical setting was, we would go back to that context and we would look at that setting and give that background for that particular psalm. Now this is a case where this historical setting is given its end line. It's in the very context in which this psalm was written. So all this context that comes before, particularly all these things about Hezekiah, but we know that that goes back even further than he has and so on, but all of this context then frames this psalm, how that we're going to read and how that we're going to interpret this psalm. Now there are other psalms that appear in line in their historical setting. A few examples of those would be Psalm 18, which is found in line in 2 Samuel chapter number 22. Psalm 96 is found in line in its setting in 1 Chronicles chapter 16 verses 23 to 33. Psalm 105 is found in line in Chronicles chapter 16 verses 8 to 22, and Psalm 106 is found in line in 1 Chronicles chapter 16 verses 34 to 36. In some cases it is the entirety of the psalm that's found in line, sometimes it's just portions of it, but nevertheless that's just an example of where that occurs with psalms in the collection of the psalms. So Hezekiah's psalm, if we were to categorize it like we did each of the 150 psalms when we were studying through them, Hezekiah's psalm, I believe, is best categorized as an individual lament because you do find a crisis complaint that is explicitly in verse number 10. You find direct address prayer to God in verses 14 and 16. You find a direct appeal petition for deliverance in verse number 16. You find a statement of confidence and a commitment to praise in verse number 20. Now, there's also some minor elements in this psalm. In fact, I would label this psalm as a minor element of penitential lament to it. As we look at verses 10 to 15, it's very subtle. It's not like some of the penitential laments where there's this open confession and acknowledgement of sin that does occur in some of the laments in the psalms. It's a little more subtle, it's a little more implicit, but I do believe that it's there. Also, another minor element would be that of thanksgiving or praise. And we know that a thanksgiving or a praise psalm has some sort of commitment to praise, call to praise, a catalog of praiseworthy acts and attributes of God. And so we do have a couple of those elements that are in here as well. Now, Hezekiah's psalm does have verbal and thematic connections with other psalms. It connects with laments in the psalms, and laments in the psalms, generally speaking, are those that move from distress to deliverance. Now, we don't often find a lament that's sort of backward-looking, the way that this one is, because the deliverance has already come, but those laments speak very confidently of the fact that this deliverance is going to come. So psalms like Psalm 6, Psalm 30, Psalm 116 are very relevant and closely connected with Hezekiah's psalm. And these laments and this distress to deliverance sort of movement is actually heightened when the stakes are life and death. The stakes are not always obviously life and death in a lament, but oftentimes that they are and they certainly is the case here in Hezekiah's psalm. We also get the motif of death, Sheol, as the cutting off from the land of the living, and that as the ending of praise, which occurs in Psalm 6, Psalm 30, Psalm 88, and Psalm 115. We also get this motif of praise following deliverance from death, which accompanies a death and resurrection motif in the Psalms, so Psalm 116. Psalm 22 is especially relevant to Hezekiah's psalm. We also get this mention of praise in the house of the Lord, which connects with Psalm 27, Psalm 30, Psalm 116, which is a concept that is quite rare in Isaiah, but very abundant in the Psalms themselves, and it is found here in Hezekiah's psalm. This psalm of Hezekiah fits within the lyrical storyline of the Psalms as a book. And I hope if you didn't glean much from studying 150 Psalms one by one, I hope that at least you gleaned this much, that the Psalms, the collection of the Psalms, as we have it, It is a unified whole that tells a unified consistent message from beginning to end. So this psalm, and when we understand it in its context, it fits in seamlessly with that lyrical storyline from the collection of the psalms. So think about this. In Book 1 of the Psalm, and you know how in your Bibles they're divided into five collections, Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, and so on. In Book 1 is Psalms 1-41, and the overarching story is that of the righteous anointed Davidic king who suffers, cries out, and is delivered in order that he may praise God. In the Book 2, Psalm 42-72, the crisis and the distress for the Davidic king intensifies and his future is threatened. In Book 3, Psalms 73-89, the promise of the Davidic line appears to fail, resulting in death, with the throne and the crown in the dust, exile, and covenant abandonment. Book 4, Psalms 90-106, is the message of God continuing to reign universally Though there is no Davidic king, and in Psalm 107 to Psalm 150, this is book five, the hope of restoration is fulfilled with the king in Zion, resulting in eternal universal praise. And just think about those last few psalms and how they end. Just an absolute explosion of praise. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. So Hezekiah's psalm, fits in this storyline of the Psalms, which is the storyline of Scripture. And we've already seen how Hezekiah is connected to David, Hezekiah is connected to Jerusalem, so that his crisis and his deliverance are actually prefiguring the crisis and deliverance for both David and Jerusalem in terms of the future Messiah. Now the poetic features of Hezekiah's psalm, obviously a death and resurrection motif, and again we've seen explicit statements of resurrection in Isaiah already. There are some more to come. They're not as explicit necessarily here, but that motif and imagery is certainly present. We have imagery where Hezekiah uses the gates of Sheol. He uses the imagery of a weaver that's cutting off the thread of life, a lion that's crushing his bones, birds that are moaning in distress and weakness. So a lot of imagery that's used in this psalm. And also we get a refrain. So this psalm has a repeated refrain in verse 12 and in verse 13 at the end. So as we look at this Hezekiah psalm, the rest of this chapter, verses 9 to 20 obviously give us this psalm. We're going to look at that. And then we'll look at verses 21 and 22, which is, again, not a part of Hezekiah's psalm that was written, but a part of Isaiah's prophecy that he has put here. It sort of gives a conclusion to this particular chapter and event. So we'll begin with the psalm in verses 9 to 20. So let's look at verses 9 to 11. the writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, when he had been sick and was recovered of his sickness. I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave. I am deprived of the residue of my years. I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord in the land of the living. I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world." These verses give us a recollection of imminent death. That's what Hezekiah is recalling, reflecting on, as he writes these words. Verse 9, again, functions as a superscription to the psalm, just like the superscriptions that we see in the collection of the psalms. It gives us the author. It gives us the occasion. It usually gives us a term. In this case, the miktav, it's a writing. It's an inscription. We have the miktom, which is something similar and related. Again, that word is very rare, so it's quite disputed. We have words like maskel, which are used in the superscription of psalms that are wisdom instruction. These are teaching psalms. And there's other words, words that have musical ideas to them, have something to do with maybe the melody to which it would be sung, or the instruments that would be used. So verse nine functions like that superscription, identifying Hezekiah, attributing this psalm to him, Hezekiah king of Judah, giving us the occasion. He had been sick and he was recovered in his sickness. Verse 10 is a sort of a poetic description of what we could call a premature death. So thematically in the Psalms this would be the shortening of life, which typically in the Psalms is a judgment on the wicked. Their days are shortened. Their days are numbered. Their days are shortened. But here, Hezekiah is saying the same of himself. He speaks of his departing, of his leaving, of his going away. This is speaking of death. Again, it's a poetic description, but it's also very descriptive of the fact that he's talking about being excluded from the land of the living. Being excluded from the land, from the earth, from the people of God. So he's talking about being consigned to Sheol. That's the word for the grave there. It's a word often used for grave, but it has even more idea of the realm of the dead. It is a place separate and distinct from the land of the living here and in the Psalms and in other places in the Old Testament where it appears. So what this indicates though, what Hezekiah is indicating with this description is that it's the ending of praise. To be cut off from the land of the living, to be consigned to Sheol, is the ending of praise. We'll see more about that. That's theologically significant. Because the fulfillment of God's covenant promises takes place in the land. on the earth. That's where it takes place. To be cut off from that land means the ending of the praise. That he cannot praise God for the fulfillment of his covenant promises taking place in the land of the living because he's somewhere else. Now this is further developed in this psalm and in the psalms in general. Verse 11, he refers to not being able to see Yahweh, not being able to see the Lord. And by this he's referring to praise, to worship. And it's further explained again as being in the land of the living. So this laments the apparent failure of the covenant and so ends praise for the fulfillment of the same. Now this is a very important psalmic theme in places like Psalm 6 and verse 5, Psalm 30 and verse 9, Psalm 88 verses 10 to 12, Psalm 115 and verse number 17, that this cutting off, this language that is used back in the books of Moses, in the books of the Old Covenant law, this cutting off would speak of someone being cut out of that Old Covenant, cut out of that community of Israel and therefore not receiving the benefits of that covenant anymore. So, in other words, the death, which shouldn't surprise us, if we've studied the Psalms, this death is not just a physical death that's being lamented. It is a covenantal death that's being lamented. It is a death that cuts him off from the promises of God. That's what's being lamented. Then we see in verses 12 to 14 a depiction of his distress. Mine age is departed and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent. I have cut off like a weaver my life. He will cut me off with pining sickness from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. I reckoned till morning that as a lion so will he break all my bones from day even to night what they'll make an end of me like a crane or a swallow so did I chatter I did mourn as a dove mine eyes fail with looking upward oh lord I am oppressed undertake for me So obviously, first of all, we get in verse number 12, we get a certain shepherd imagery that comes through, very important in the Psalms. Psalms like Psalm 23, Psalm 28, Psalm 74, Psalm 78, Psalm 80, Psalm 95, Psalm 100, this shepherd imagery, very important that flows throughout the Psalms and is related to kingship and to the Messiah. And he's here lamenting, The death of the shepherd. Now remember, what's at stake? What's at stake? Hezekiah doesn't have any children. He doesn't have a son. There is no heir. Manasseh has not been born yet. And so the line of David, the death of the line of David, is what is at stake. And so he is lamenting here the death of the shepherd. And so the shepherd has died and his tent is just folded up and carried away and his house is removed. The house of David failing and is removed. That's what's being lamented. This weaver imagery. like a weaver cutting off a thread and ending whatever the work is that might be on the loom or whatever. Ending that work, that's just imagery capture for his life being cut off, his life being cut short. And in fact, God as a weaver is a very strong image that's used in Psalm 139, verses 13 to 16, where there, in particular, it has this function of emphasizing God's sovereignty over life and death. He is the weaver, as it were, that's weaving that cloth, that tapestry, whatever that it might be, and he is the one that determines its beginning and its ending. So Hezekiah uses that very strong imagery as well. He likens God to a lion. Divine distress. In other words, he's acknowledging here that this affliction has come from God. His suffering is ordered by God. He's not complaining here of an enemy. It's not a wicked nation that is besetting him. He's not here complaining about Assyria. He is here in the throes of sickness unto death, as the beginning of the chapter indicates, and he's recognizing that this is God's hand that is heavy upon him, which is, again, common imagery for the righteous sufferer in the Psalms. This also gives us, this is where I see particularly that implicit penitence coming in, the suffering judgment from God. And then we get this verse at the end of verse 12 and 13 where we get this repeated refrain, from day even unto night, wilt thou make an end of me? And then in verse 14, His weakness is depicted and it uses imagery of these different birds. And this is very common in the Psalms in particular for weakness and frailty and vulnerability. What happens with birds? Oftentimes they're caught in a snare. They're caught in a trap. They're unable to deliver themselves. They are very weak against predators that would seek to take them out, against hunters that are cunningly devising traps and things for them. And so he likens himself and his weakness. In other words, Hezekiah here is acknowledging that he has no help. Again, very common in laments. You have no help, no ability to deliver oneself. His help must come from the Lord. And then we get this We get this statement, like, my eyes fail from looking up. Again, very similar. If we read this in the course of the Psalms, we wouldn't think in any way that it was out of place in the Psalms. His eyes are failing. In other words, he's sought deliverance. He's prayed for deliverance. He has looked for him, waited for deliverance, and he's failing because it has not come. And then we get this direct address here to the Lord, this petition. I am oppressed. I'm suffering. I'm under affliction that's going to crush me. And he says, undertake for me. Now, several different translations I looked at on that term. Some did a little better than that. Undertake is a little bit general for us. The word that's used here is most of the time in the Old Testament that it's used translated surety. Become a surety for me. Sometimes it's translated pledge. Become a pledge for me. Pledge, surety, this is covenantal language. One place that it's used in such a way, it appears in Psalm 119 verse 122. So we should not be surprised. Again, if we've studied through the Psalms, then we understand that covenants undergird these laments that are found. It's not just self-pity. These are not just emotional outbursts, but that God's promises undergird these laments, undergird these prayers that sometimes use very bold language. Language that in very nice and polite settings we like to make apologies for. Things that just don't seem to sit well with us. You can't talk to God like that. Who are you to utter that? But we understand that. Implications that cause people no ends of problems. You understand. Why that language is used and how it is used when you understand that these laments are undergirded by God's covenant promises. That means that God has sworn by His own name that He is going to fulfill these promises. And so you get the intercession of Moses that essentially tells God, you can't do that. And we think, wait a minute, that's irreverent. You can't talk like that to God. Why would Moses tell God you can't do that? Moses told God that he couldn't do that because of his own name. You've given your own name for this nation. You can't destroy them and start a new nation. You cannot do that. You would not be God. Of course, God knows that. seems to have no problem with such a prayer. So we really shouldn't either. Then we get to verses 15 to 16, which give us a justification of God. Now there's a way of reading these laments and sort of recoiling in our humanness to say, well, that's not fair. God's afflicting him? God's hand is heavy on him? I mean, I can understand these laments where there's an enemy that's lying against him, that's making accusations, that is trying to bring condemnation, when there's enemies that's hunting down, trying to kill him and take his life. I can understand laments like that, but laments that say that God is like a lion that is from day to night sitting there crushing and devouring his bones? Well, verses 15 to 16 give us a justification of God. What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it. I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul. O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit. So wilt thou recover me and make me to live. Behold, for peace I had great bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption, for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back." So God's Word, verse 15, Hezekiah is giving voice to the fact that God's Word governs all events. He cannot say or do anything against it or for it. In other words, Hezekiah has no ability to add to God's Word, to take away from God's Word, to adjust, to edit God's Word. He has no ability. He can say or do nothing against it. It's sort of like in some places in scripture where you'll find the statement that it's the Lord. He will do what He's pleased to do. I can't stop it. I can't change it. There's nothing I can do about that. He talks about this affliction at God's hand, and this is very reminiscent of Job in this part. In verse number 16, we get another direct address petition. What is it that Hezekiah wants? What's he praying for? He's seeking restoration. He's seeking recovery. So from the full context, we understand that that restoration is not just Hezekiah saying, you know, God, there's a lot of things I just never did get to do. I never did have a son. You know, I never climbed this mountain. I never visited this place. There's just a lot of things on my list that I want to accomplish in my life, and you're cutting my life short. Can I just have a little more time to be able to do these sort of things? That is not Hezekiah's prayer at all. His prayer is for restoration to life for one primary purpose, and that is to praise God. We see that by the end of this Psalm. Now, verses 17 to 19, Give us. the fact that praise is for the living. I read 17 earlier, let's read it again, 17 to 19. Behold, for peace I had great bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption. For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. For the grave cannot praise thee. Death cannot celebrate thee. They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee as I do this day. The father to the children shall make known thy truth. So verse 17, first of all, notice this reversal. In other words, we've had God justified and now there's a reversal. It's almost as if Hezekiah has laid out his sufferings and now he is reinterpreting them. Now he's giving them a different look, not only Not only are his sufferings and afflictions from God, but here he's acknowledging that they are for good. from God for good. Now there's a particular place where we get this very, very similar use of language and concepts. Psalm 119, verse 67, 71, 75, and 107. And we'll get very, very similar language and prayer there. And he also speaks of love and forgiveness. Out of love. for my soul and casting all my sins behind thy back, which is very reminiscent of Psalm 103. He has experienced this love and forgiveness of God. In verse 18, he speaks of God's faithfulness. They cannot hope for thy truth. That word for truth there, emet in Hebrew, it's a word that means truthfulness or trustworthiness. It speaks of reliability. It is a covenantal term strongly associated with the fact that God has made promises, He has sworn by His own name, and He will not fail to keep every one of those promises. That's referred to as God's faithfulness. And so faithfulness would be a good translation. I think some of the newer translations do give us faithfulness here. Truth is not bad as long as we understand that it is faithfulness, trustworthiness. Those who do not return from death to the land of the living, Who would that be? That would be those that die outside of Christ. They don't return to the land of the living. Yes, they will face a resurrection, but it is a resurrection to be consigned to a lake of fire for all eternity. They don't return to the land of the living to praise God. So those who do not return from death to the land of the living cannot praise God's covenant faithfulness. So if you understand the logic of what Hezekiah is praying, and again, this is also found in the Psalms. Psalm 6 verse 5, Psalm 30 verse 9, Psalm 88 verses 10 to 12. So this is not unique here. If you understand the logic of Hezekiah's prayer, he's talking about if God fails to keep his covenant promises. If God fails to keep his covenant promises, then I am dead and gone. consigned to hell, consigned to Sheol, never to return to the land of the living, never to be recovered to the land of the living, never to be restored, never to enjoy eternal life, never to praise Him, and for what? For His covenant faithfulness. Because He wasn't faithful to His covenant, if that would be the case. So the implication then would be that God's covenant mercy, His chesed, has failed. if he would not return to the land of the living. In verse 19, he gives us the contrary. Praise belongs to the living. Again, this is a resurrection, death and resurrection motif. We started out with death, with coming to resurrection. Praise belongs to the living, in the land of the living. Again, the place where God's covenant promises are fulfilled. And notice also, it's generational. Father shall make known to the children thy truth. It's generational. In other words, it's indicating a full covenant fulfillment that results in lasting, unending praise. Because you know what? God is faithful. God is true. God is merciful, and God in love acted toward Hezekiah to show not only Hezekiah, but the house of David kindness, and Israel, and even speaking to us today, where all of our hopes are bound up in God's faithfulness to His own promises. You and I have not a single hope outside of that. If God is not faithful to His own promises, we have zero hope. That's what's being expressed in all of this imagery. Verse number 20 is the last verse of the psalm. The Lord was ready to save me. Therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the Lord. So here is a statement of confidence and a commitment to praise. Hezekiah says salvation comes from the Lord. He was just that weak bird that was just moaning in distress, unable to secure deliverance. There's also a key shift here. You notice that it might seem subtle. He says, the Lord was ready to save me. He speaks in the singular there. The Lord was ready to save me. Therefore, we. And he goes to the plural. We will sing these psalms, these psalms of praise all of our life in the house of the Lord. That's a very key shift. Salvation results, again, not just in a few more years for Hezekiah. What salvation ultimately results in for Hezekiah is restoration to life and communal praise in the house of the Lord forever. That's what salvation really means for Hezekiah. And so ultimately, this reference again to this praise in the house of the Lord, very rare in Isaiah, but it points again to the restoration and the exaltation of Zion to which Hezekiah was directly connected along with David. Now we get the conclusion of this Psalm, verses 21 to 22. So we're told here that a plaster was put on the boil. There's a treatment of some sort to the wound. And so this wound is not going to result in Hezekiah's death, but rather he's going to recover and this treatment apparently is going to help him in some way, but it was insufficient on its own because otherwise, as we saw at the beginning of chapter 38, Hezekiah was on the very verge of death due to whatever the sickness was. And again, we don't know the exact nature of it. And so it really just completes this account with a reminder that Hezekiah had asked for the sign. And again, if you go back to Isaiah chapter number seven, Ahaz's unfaithfulness is shown to us in the fact that he refused to ask for a sign. And he tried to be all pious about it, that he wouldn't ask for a sign. Oh, you know, this would be a tempting of the Lord. Hezekiah in faithfulness was told that he'd be given a sign and he asked for that sign. So ending this on a note of Hezekiah's faithfulness. Now again, that doesn't mean Hezekiah had no failures, no issues and things in life. He certainly did. He certainly was. a sinner, but he was a sinner saved by grace. And so he's given as an example of positive faithfulness and hope for Israel and even for us today. So when we are interpreting this psalm. We can clearly see that this psalm teaches God sovereignty over life and death. All these things are in God's hands and that means that he gives and he takes as it pleases him to do so. And he does it according to his own purpose. He does it according to the counsel of his own will. He doesn't seek counsel outside of himself on when to give and when to take. This psalm also teaches resurrection. Again, not quite as explicit. It's done through imagery, which is common in the psalms, even though the psalms have some pretty explicit places like Psalm 16 that speak of of resurrection, and Isaiah speaks of it explicitly again in other places, but it does teach resurrection. Death is that that cuts off from the land of the living, and it ends praise, and that's not remedied. You're cut off from the land of the living, that's not remedied. That is eternal punishment. Resurrection restores to life. to the earth for the purpose of eternal universal praise of God and Christ. Now the reason for the 15 added years, as we put it together with this Hezekiah psalm, is unmistakably clear. Life from death for praise. And not just praise, thank you, you spared me, but praise for your faithfulness. Praise for your love and your mercy that for your own sake took pity upon me, the chief of sinners. It prefigures the extension of life for Jerusalem. The 15 added years to Hezekiah prefigures the extended life for Jerusalem. The life of Jerusalem, the city, as we saw, it was under threat. But Hezekiah and Jerusalem, of course, would go on to die. So, it leaves us with that unresolved tension, even by the end of this psalm. What about praise? What about the grave? What about the land of the living? What about covenant promises? Well, again, the function of unresolved tension, particularly as we see it in the Psalms, is to give anticipation, and that translates directly into Psalms, and this Psalm is no exception. It translates directly into messianic hope. Now, the messianic hope of this Psalm We see the righteous sufferer delivered from death in a death and resurrection motif in the Psalm. And that praise follows suffering and death. But that praise following suffering and death is entirely dependent on something, isn't it? How can Hezekiah be assured that he's going to one day be restored to life in the land of the living, on the earth, and engage in everlasting, unending praise to God. How can he be assured of that? You say, well, God's promised in the covenant. And yes, that is one thing. But how's that facilitated? It's only facilitated by the death and resurrection of the Messiah. which Psalm 22 speaks very greatly to, and again, speaks very much to this psalm as well. This psalm also, in the Messianic hope, we see that there's forgiveness of sin. Forgiveness of sin. A being made holy that is through death to life, which is also echoed in Isaiah 53. Also, Hezekiah was the Davidic king. suffering affliction unto death, but he was resurrected and restored to life in figure here to lead praise in the community of the house of the Lord." Again, that's directly from the psalm. So for Jerusalem and Hezekiah and the house of David and Israel who all suffered death, resurrection and restoration is needed in order to praise Yahweh's faithfulness and covenant mercy. So death had to be defeated so that praise will happen. And this will, of course, come about just as Isaiah reports and proclaims in Isaiah 53 so wonderfully. And also the writer of Hebrews picks up on this very well and speaks to this in Hebrews 2 as well. So finally, just a bit of application to us today. We understand Hezekiah's psalm. It helps us understand that prayer participates in God's purpose. It's something that, again, it causes us difficulty. We get all nodded up about prayer. Well, if God's sovereign and he's determined all these things, then what's the point of prayer? What does prayer really do? How could there really be power in prayer? All these kind of questions. But in these last couple of chapters in particular, how could you question the power of prayer? That there is power in prayer. But we're also shown that prayer participates in God's purpose. It doesn't preempt it, it doesn't change it, but it participates in that purpose. Which is exactly, I believe, why Jesus said that we pray that it be according to the Father's will. Understanding Hezekiah's psalm and understanding the reinterpretation of suffering that Hezekiah does, which essentially sort of makes an appendage or an appendix or something that he adds on, it occurs in the psalm. It helps us reorient the sufferings, the afflictions, those things that we suffer. Maybe now, maybe it has been recently, maybe further in the past, certainly in our future. It aligns suffering with God's will and it pushes us toward future hope rather than just temporary present relief. And those are very different things. Understanding Hezekiah's psalm finally helps us understand what life is truly for. It is for praise of the Creator who made us and of the Savior who redeemed us. God's covenant mercy is experienced through the Word, through our lives, through suffering, through forgiveness, and then through death and ultimately through resurrection to the unending praise of God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.